Last week, a once-in-a-generation celebration of British basketball took place. The only issue? This celebration didn’t go beyond the doors of the gym.
After months of preparation from the UK basketball community, spearheaded by Sam Neter and Hoopsfix, a sold-out Copper Box Arena played host to the first leg of the Axe Euro Tour.
That being said, I bet my increasingly worthless bottom dollar that readers know about as much about the Axe Euro Tour, or British basketball in general, as they do about Boris Johnson’s reasoning for letting Nadine Dorries get within touching distance of Number 10.
This is not the public’s fault – the game’s historical struggles for cultural and financial legitimacy in the UK’s sporting landscape are well documented. But this rather shines a light on how damaging a lack of media coverage is for basketball and fringe sports generally. More fundamentally, though, this serves to ask what future there is, if there even is one, for sports to thrive in the UK which exist outside the gaze of the mainstream media.
This had to be the day
The stars aligned for this to be the day that British basketball would finally get the media attention it not only deserved, but desperately craved.
The first leg of the aforementioned Axe Euro Tour saw Hoopsfix Elite take on California Basketball Club. In other words, the UK’s brightest young talent locking horns with the very best American basketball talent going – some of whom have already been tipped to make it to the NBA.
Still not convinced about the importance of the event? Perhaps this man can help…
Lebron James, one of the most illustrious sportspeople the world has ever seen, was tuned in to British basketball. Granted, his children were playing, but the attention on British basketball didn’t stop there.
The entire event was broadcast live on ESPNU, with attention from the stateside media (and then some) to boot.
And yet, despite a cacophony of noise emanating from the states about British basketball, all that could be heard from the mainstream British media was an all-too-familiar radio silence.
With a sold-out crowd, mega-celebrity interest and basketball of the highest quality on show, you have to conclude that this had to be the day the mainstream media sat up and took notice of what British basketball can offer.
And yet, they didn’t.
A question of priorities
It’s essential to consider the point of view of the mainstream media here. The private providers, including Sky Sports and the major newspapers, didn’t run any stories of note on this event at the time.
On the one hand, this is perfectly understandable. They’re doing what’s profitable, and a story on any fringe sport will struggle to gain the traction their business model is expecting. On the other hand, they have the excess capital available to broaden their offering and, after the NBA playoffs were broadcast on Sky Sports this year, you have to wonder why they missed this opportunity to promote the game to an audience they are already trying to court.
Head over to the BBC Sport website, whose business model is driven as much by neutrality as it is clicks, and there was no mention of the event. Interestingly enough, BBC Sport did find the time and resource to report on events elsewhere – including the latest goss in the para-equestrian world. Even when considering typically ‘American’ sports, BBC Sport managed to throw together 150 words about an NFL franchise takeover.
This isn’t to devalue these sports – all sports on the fringes warrant exposure – but rather to reveal the dizzying priorities of BBC Sport.
Why ignore basketball?
The longer I attempt to understand the editorial thought processes behind basketball’s omission, the more confused I become.
The two key factors, it would seem, in any story that gets the green light from pretty much any mainstream UK sports publication are that the stakes must be high, and there has to be significant British interest.
The British interest is manifest. Considering the fact that the home team was victorious in the end, it shows our ability to muck in with the best of them on the world stage. Indeed, the stakes could have hardly been higher from a British perspective. Opportunities to compare yourself to some of the best talent in the world just don’t present themselves very often – especially when you’re from the UK. The fact that the Copper Box was sold out for an U18 basketball match tells you all you need to know.
The role of the media
Is the mainstream media complicit in marginalising fringe sports such as basketball? Its easy to see why some think this.
By accident or otherwise, there seems to be an abdication of responsibility from the mainstream media. In a world where sports are competing for legitimacy in the UK, it is incumbent on the media to use the remarkable reach only they enjoy to validate and promote fringe sports like basketball.
It’s true that platforms can’t do this for every sport. But if there were questions around which sport to promote last week – you can’t help but wonder what more the basketball community could do to show they were the ones deserving of the media attention at the expense of other sports.
Where now for British basketball?
At the moment, despite the sport played in most schools, playable by anyone with a ball, with hoops freely accessible, British basketball needs a boost. With regards to what must be provided to make basketball worthy of mainstream media attention, the bar seems to keep getting higher and higher.
There would need to be some form of NBA intervention, or for the national teams to suddenly be able to regularly compete with the likes of the US on the world stage, neither of which are can be guaranteed at this point.
But ask an optimist – also known as the people dedicating their lives to British basketball – and there is always hope. In spite of the systemic challenges basketball has always faced in the UK, basketball is where it is today and is still growing.
If the mainstream media’s priorities don’t shift, basketball will remain firmly on the fringes, and immense, world-beating talent will continue to go under-noticed and under-appreciated by the UK sporting community as a whole. But, for as long as there is unrealised potential left within the game, the British basketball community will continue to push the boundaries of what the mainstream media expects is possible from just another fringe sport.
And, for as long as the basketball community continue to break their necks for a game that has limitless physical, social and cultural upside, there will always be hope that things might change.
That, one day, basketball will finally get the recognition it so richly deserves in the UK.
